PROTECTED HARBOUR

Participants will have the chance to learn about and support local initiatives, including the Sound Map of Budapest, the Protected Harbour and the On the Edge of the City – all of which are based in our district.

Title of the project 2.: PROTECTED HARBOUR

Background information about the organization and its project

The Foundation for Curative Employment had been established at the National Psychiatric and Neurological Institute („Lipót”). After the closing down of the Institute in 2007 the Foundation had worked at the Merényi Gusztáv Hospital’s Department of Curative Employment, as part of it. For Autumn 2014 we have been looking for new resources to support our psychiatric patients independently from healthcare institutions. Recently we work in the Inner-Ferencváros and here we provide place for the wider public. Our gallery is already known throughout the country and psychiatric patients, institutions and civil organizations want to make contact with it.

Aim of the project to be supported

The aim of our Foundation is to improve the life quality of psychiatric patients and build community among them through strengthening their self-knowledge, their social competencies, their skill to make and sustain contacts, through eliminating their isolationa nd also with the help of art therapy. Experiencing the joy of creation and being a part of a creative community in our project, these patients can realize that they are persons of real worth and they are useful part of the society.

Which problems are to be solved by our project?

The psychiatric patient getting out of the healthcare-system can hardly establish an independent and dignified life. Those who have left the psychiatric hospitals often found themselves in a vacuum. After receiving the diagnosis of a lifelong illness, they have to face the fact that they cannot continue their old life, so they get into a state of total inner insecurity and have the feeling of being stigmatized. Sometimes it makes impossible to maintain their relationships with family members or friends, moreover they can fall out permanently from the labour market. While in the hospitals and healthcare institutions these patients take part in the sessions of art therapy because they want to meet the requirements, we can provide for them a democratic surrounding and a free platform of communication.

Which solutions are offered/which kind of activities are planned in the project?

The Open Gate Gallery is an independent, experimental place to where people arrive voluntarily. Our institution is somewhere in the middle of being a protective healthcare-system and the outside world that often seems frightful. We plan to restart a program of 15 weeks for closed groups dealing with art therapy from this support which is closed by a creative week they work together. These groups had been very successful but recently we don’t have enough resources to continue them while financing our daily work. After minimum two groups will be finishing the therapeutic process, we plan to organize a common exhibition for them. Among those who will lead the guided tours of the exhibitions we will always include some of the authors. We will also organize programs for schools, round-table discussions and museumpedagogical trainings. Through the effects of this value-making program we can help the outside world to step by step come over its distance-keeping attitude towards the psychiatric patient and mutually minimalize the fear and prejudice against each other.

How much support do you need minimally? How much support do you expect from Live Broadcast and how do you plan to use it?

The center of our project is the therapeutical work that takes place in closed groups and which is followed by an open exhibition for the public.

Every therapeutic session includes a 1 week long stay for creating art together and closing the group work

fee of the leader of this week: 50.000 HUF (5 occassions)

We organize exhibitions from the art-pieces made during the week.

Fee of installations: 90.000 HUF

Fee of film-making: 40.000 HUF

We provide guided tours, round-table discussions and museumpedagogical programs during the exhibitions (all these we will finance on our own, not from the support we receive)

In case of receiving 250.000 HUF: we will organize an art-therapeutic group of 4 months including one week of creating art together

– In case of receiving 630.000 HUF: we will organize 2 art-therapetic groups of 8 months including 1 week of creating art together for each group, 1 exhibition for the 2 groups, and we will make a film

– In case of receiving 840.000 HUF: we will organize 3 art-therapetic groups of 12 months including 1 week of creating art together for each group, 1 exhibition for the 3 groups, and we will make a film

How will you measure the efficiency of the program you’ll have made?

The art-therapist will make notes about the content and her experiences. Based on these notes we can make a report for the public excluding names and other details not to harm the personality rights of the participants. The summary of the therapist’s tests’ results will be publicised. These tests will focus on the quality of self-expression and of sharing one’s inner life, we will have a look at the changes of one’s community skills as well. We will make a film on the exhibition and we will provide space for those authors and visitors who are ready to share their thoughts. Moreover, we will collect the impressions of the latter in the visitor’s book and through personal discussions.